


In Which Newt Delivers Her Copy In Person

by OccamyEggshells



Category: Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them (Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Falling In Love, No Dialogue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-03
Updated: 2019-04-03
Packaged: 2020-01-04 07:58:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,206
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18339440
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OccamyEggshells/pseuds/OccamyEggshells
Summary: Newt, as a man of his word, hand-delivered her a signed copy of Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them a month and a half after the book hit shelves.





	In Which Newt Delivers Her Copy In Person

Newt, as a man of his word, hand-delivered her a signed copy of  _ Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them  _ a month and a half after the book hit shelves. The last thing Tina expected when she returned home from work one rainy Tuesday evening was to see Queenie, Jacob, and Newt crowded around the stove, laughing between themselves as they made dinner. Queenie happily informed her that she and Newt had been writing to each other for months planning for the surprise.

They had sat around the table with much more joy than they had that day in December the year previous. Newt told them how his brother convinced him to be an errand boy for the ministry in order to get his travel ban lifted. Jacob talked about how well his bakery was doing, and Queenie, careful not to meet Tina’s disapproving look, explained to Newt how she and Jacob secretly resumed their relationship. When dinner was over and they finished playing a card game that Jacob had taught them, they lead both men to the same room they had stayed in before.

Newt blushed and ducked his head awkwardly when Tina threatened to bring him back into MACUSA if he tried to sneak out during the night. A smile tugged at his lips as he promised to stay for as long as she’d let him. Like that day on the docks, Newt reached his hand out and tucked her hair behind her ear before wishing her a good night.

In the week Newt stayed with them, the grin never left Tina’s face. Just knowing that he was nearby made the air smell cleaner, colors appear brighter, and her emotions feel heightened. When Tina got home from work, they’d go for walks around the city. There was never a destination in mind, they spent the evenings talking about their various adventures in their professions. Any attraction she felt to him last year felt minuscule compared to how he made her feel that week. 

Having Newt around made it more difficult for Tina to be resentful of Queenie’s relationship with Jacob. One late night, Queenie shook her awake and quietly begged her to help convince Jacob to run away to England. Her younger sister spoke of a perfect future where they lived next to each other with the men that they loved. Their children running around together without a care in the world.

Taking Queenie’s hands in her own, Tina explained how illegal that is, how everything they’ve built for themselves would be wiped out in a single blow. She and Newt wouldn’t be able to protect Queenie and Jacob, no matter how much they wanted to. Queenie, ever the optimist, pulled away from her sister. She hissed the word coward across the room as she turned to face the wall. Tina stayed awake the whole night staring at the ceiling.

Newt left on a Tuesday. Tina took the day off to spend it with him. They strolled through the city as they had the days before. Her heart pounded the entire time as if she was reaching the end of the world and everyone around her was completely oblivious. She gripped Newt’s hand to reassure herself that he was still there. Tina couldn’t bring herself to have a good time, knowing that her time with Newt was reaching its end.

For the second time, Tina stood at the docks, giving Newt a tearful smile. He kissed her for the first time before boarding the boat and she stood on the dock until the boat disappeared off the horizon.

When she returned home, the apartment was silent. There was no dinner on the stove and no music playing from Queenie’s prized record player. Her sister had gone to Jacob’s, as was the routine before Newt was present to be a peacekeeper. Tina sat on the couch and brought her knees to her chest. Tears welled in her eyes as loneliness surrounded her.

Queenie, after the slow and painful process of taking all of her belongings out of the apartment, moved in with Jacob. Given that there was no one helping with the rent, Tina let the lease on the apartment expire before moving somewhere smaller. Out of the two of them, Queenie was the more materialistic, so the only items Tina had in her cramped space were ones that Queenie didn’t want. It felt right to Tina, to be surrounded by things that Queenie had discarded for her new life with Jacob.

She wanted desperately to leave the country, to run off to Europe to make herself useful in the war effort. Credence, as far as she knew, trusted only her. She needed to find him before any other auror could harm him.

It was Newt who encouraged her to stay put. Since he had seen in person that Jacob was not properly oblivated, Tina had no qualms against writing him about it. Newt promised to talk to his brother on Credence’s behalf and to personally follow any lead that could lead him to the young man.

That particular letter arrived at midnight, which caused Tina to spend the night trying to formulate a letter in which she put Newt in his place for trying to put her on the sidelines, but also showed how appreciative she was that he would do that for her.

Never the less, Tina stayed put in New York. The department of magical security was a frantic place. Grindelwald’s escaped weighed heavily on the department. Their reputation was already smeared by the murder and replacement of Director Graves, and Grindelwald’s public escape reflected poorly on all of them. Being in the department was a badge of pride to Tina, to have it degraded so much by the public and media made her infuriated.

Tina wrote to Newt about her unrest, how she needed to go to Europe, find Credence, and restore MACUSA’s reputation. Newt was patient in his letters, and as Tina would later reflect, he became her rational mind as everything else spiraled around her. Knowing that Newt was there to tether her, Tina was able to find peace in her darkest nights as her body lay limp from all the tears she cried.

It was rare that Tina would ever read a magazine, much less one from Britain. Queenie, after months of not speaking to her, approached her one day at work. She put a dated copy of Spellbound in her hand, and quietly invited her over for dinner. Tina smiled at the picture of Newt on the cover, the magazine was printed a month and a half before that wonderful week Newt came to see them. Queenie bit her lip anxiously as she waited for Tina to flip the magazine open. 

Leta Lestrange hung off Newt’s arm in the picture. If this bothered Newt, he didn’t show it as he smiled to the camera. The headline boasted Newt and Leta’s engagement, and sure enough, Leta’s finger hosted a beautiful engagement ring.

Tina crumpled against Queenie’s side, her mind racing as her younger sister led her to a chair. Queenie, having put her resentment aside, pulled Tina into a hug and rocked her gently in her arms. When they arrived and Jacob and Queenie’s apartment, Jacob cooked a warm meal and threw a blanket over her shoulders as she curled up on their couch.

Maybe in another universe, she would have pledged to never write Newt again and make him feel as betrayed and cast aside as she does. On her bedside table, there was a signed copy of his book, the streets of New York echoed with the memory of their laughter, and sometimes she could feel the press of his lips against hers if she thought hard enough about it. When he let the creatures loose in the city, they had parted as friends, when he brought the book they parted as much more. Because of those reasons, she demanded an explanation.

When she was demoted from her job, Queenie had taken her braid and sliced it off in the single flick of a severing charm. After sending her letter to Newt, Tina sat in a chair in the middle of Jacob and Queenie’s kitchen while her sister carefully cut her hair with scissors. Queenie’s approach to anything negative was to make a change to her appearance. She insisted that Tina do the same. After finishing with her hair, Queenie asked if Tina would lie to MACUSA so she and Jacob could take off into the night to elope.

Tina had stood quickly from her chair. Not only was Queenie taking off in the night, she expected Tina to look into the eyes of her coworkers and lie. Every day, Tina went into work to uphold the law, and her baby sister openly admitted to her that she’s going to commit a crime only upstaged by murder and treason.

The next day at work drug on and the minute her shift ended, Tina went to Jacob and Queenie’s apartment. Sentimental items were gone, their clothing was taken, and silence hung over the building. Tina stood in the middle of the kitchen, her eyes stared past the wall across from her.

The two people she cared about in her life betrayed her. Both of them taking off to be with someone who they love more than her. Tina rolled her shoulders back, having decided that she’s cried far too much over the past few months for people who don’t deserve it.

She marched into MACUSA and straight to the auror department. Those on the night shift looked at her curiously as she pounded on the door of the new director. Her wit, determination, courage, and ambition persuaded the director and the president to send her undercover on MACUSA’s behalf.

A week after Queenie left, Tina found herself in Paris. She sat alone in a small cafe, her work notes spread on the table in front of her as a way to spend time until the circus came to the city. Because she used a government-issued portkey, Tina suspected that she arrived in Europe both before her letter to Newt and before her sister and Jacob on the boat. Being in France didn’t make her feel any better than she had in New York, but she found peace in the distance from the memories.

Newt’s reply to her letter was delivered by owl, unlike the ones previous which had arrived across the ocean in the no-maj post. The owl must have instinctually have known that she was on the continent. Newt’s handwriting, which was usually eloquent, was a scrawl. Tina suspected that his hand must have been shaking when he wrote her. In his letter, Newt explained how Leta was engaged to Theseus, and she was going to be his sister-in-law rather than his wife. He apologized for not correcting it, he hadn’t read any of the articles about himself and thus wasn’t aware that something so misleading had been published.

Knowing that she would change her mind before she had time to dig out an envelope, Tina flipped over Newt’s letter and scribbled the address for the cafe. She stuffed the letter back in Newt’s original envelope and tied it to the owl’s leg.

As part of her new daily routine, Tina sat at the cafe, drank her coffee, and scanned her notes. Newt, almost immediately after leaving New York for the first time, sent his notes about the Sudanese girl he had met. Tina compared those to her observations about Credence.

She lifted her head when two people bumped into each other at the doorway. A young man in a suit apologized before walking out of the building. Newt fixed his coat - which must have been new since it’s different from the one Tina remembered - and scanned the cafe. When their eyes met, Newt broke into a grin. Tina stood from the table as Newt weaved his way through the tables on his way over to her.

Newt stopped in front of her and set his case on the ground. He rubbed the inside of his pocket as he said his hello. His face was red and he seemed unsure what he should do next. Tina, before made any move toward him, needed to hear the truth about Leta again. When she asked Newt, he gave the same explanation. He looked at her as though she was the only person in the world. His entire body was tense, waiting to figure out if he was worthy of her forgiveness.

Tina couldn’t bear to wait for another second, she quickly closed the gap between them and wrapped her arms around his abdomen as she rested her head on his shoulder. Newt let out the breath of air he was holding as he closed his arms to hold her close to him.

She still needed to sort out the situation with Queenie, but now that she had Newt back at her side, she felt more confident and ready for whatever the universe had to throw at her. The two of them stood in their embrace, both vowing to themselves that they’d never let the other slip away again.


End file.
